Leading Article: Mad Dogs and teenage drinkers

Glory be. Young people like to drink disgusting alcoholic concoctions and behave badly. In the old days, you had to ask the barperson to mix unlikely ingredients - blackcurrant and Guinness springs to mind, port and lemon, vodka and orange, lager and lime.

Now the manufacturers mix them for you and put them in bottles called Mad Dog, White Lightning and Ice Dragon. Apparently these appeal to 14- to 16-year-olds, and they are blamed for encouraging "heavy drinking".

Our main worry is that under-age drinkers have been taken in by the commercialised mark-up on their unwise experiments.